RIM issues Playbook upgrade

RIM has announced that the new BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 will be released for download today. BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 is supposed to improve the much maligned tablet.

David J. Smith, SVP Mobile Computing at RIM said that the new PlayBook OS 2.0 features include an integrated email client with a unified inbox. This sticks all messages in one place, including messages from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as personal and work email accounts. There are also calendar and contacts apps which can take information from social networks and makes it available where and when users need it. Contact cards are also dynamically populated with updated information from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to create a consolidated view of contacts.

There is an improved BlackBerry Bridge app that provides a Bluetooth connection between your BlackBerry PlayBook and core apps on your BlackBerry smartphone. It is also easier to take documents, web pages, emails and photos that appear on your BlackBerry smartphone and display them on your BlackBerry PlayBook for better viewing and editing.

There is a new remote control feature that allows a BlackBerry smartphone to be used as a wireless keyboard and mouse for a BlackBerry PlayBook although we can't think of anything worse. The PlayBook has an updated virtual keyboard with auto correction and predictive next word completion learns how you type to enable faster, more accurate typing.

So while it does more if you play with a Blackberry phone, it is still not as good as a stand alone tablet as the Android and Fruity toys out there.